A bread making revival

Yesterday, I made some sourdough pizzas from scratch*, and it reminded me of how magical baking bread is. I'm going to try to bake smaller loaves more often, so hopefully there'll be more bread to be seen here soon. I've also realised that I don't actually know all that much about baking bread, and I think that I need to spend a bit more time just playing around and experimenting. Also, I just got a Lodge Combo Cooker which apparently makes a great Dutch oven. So with that in mind, it's time to get started!

A Breadmaking Revival Loaf
Ingredients

• 120g Strong white flour
• 180g Strong brown flour
• 210g Water
• 10g Olive oil
• 6g Salt
• 250g Aage

Method

1. Mix together all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
2. Wrap the bowl tightly in a black bin bag and leave overnight.
3. Knead until no longer sticky.
4. Place on a sheet of baking parchment and rewrap in bag.
5. Leave to rise for ~4 hours.
6. Preheat oven to its maximum setting with Dutch oven inside.
7. Transfer dough still on its baking parchment to hot Dutch oven and bake for 25mins, then remove lid and bake for further 5-10 mins.

Straight to the result - I genuinely think that this might be the prettiest loaf I've ever baked. It's a little flatter than I had originally wanted, but that's at least in part because the dough was so moist. I can't wait for this guy to cool so we can crack it open!

I had been a little worried that the underside might either burn or not be done, but just look at it! I needn't have worried - it's absolutely perfect!

*For anyone wondering, it has been a long-established convention that pizza isn't close enough to baking to make it to this blog! I did throw half the dough into the oven to make a sort-of-loaf for lunch, which probably should have counted, but oh well. For the record, the pizzas were basically made to the Serious Eats foolproof pan pizza recipe, which is genuinely brilliant.